Monday Catch-Up: Merry Christmas?

I’ve had some tabs open for nearly a week, now, so chances are – you’ve seen some of these stories, but some of these are too important to discard.

To those of us who pay close attention to current events – how festive are we feeling three days before Christmas in Obama’s America? Does it feel like Christmas is almost upon us? Or do we have a sick feeling in the pits of our stomachs that as bad as things are now – with a newly “liberated” POTUS feeling frisky after the midterms, things are about to get much worse?

As he frolics in the sun in balmy Hawaii, witness the hell he’s unleashed all across the country and world.

Mississippi Burning:

While the local po-po seem to have no interest in solving the Jessica Chambers case, internet sleuths like the Conservative Treehouse, and @0Hour1 appear to have it all but solved. The FBI shouldn’t be too far behind. It’s an ugly, shocking story that should break any day now.

In philosophy and problem solving, there’s the principle of reasoning known as Occam’s (or Okham’s) Razor, which goes like this: Among multiple alternative explanations, all of which require various assumptions in order to arrive at possible solutions, often the simplest and plainest answer — involving the least number of assumptions — turns out to be the right one.

So, we have local black gang associates posting terror threats on social media — threats of murder, by burning, directed at the women and children family members of white police employees — immediately before the murder, by burning, of the white teenage daughter of a local police department employee. Plus, the killing took place only minutes after the victim was seen on video at the same location as the husband or boyfriend of the person who posted the threats, as he was filling a handheld can with gasoline.

The entire case could simply be one more incident in the modern, one-sided race war of black on white; a war which is never talked about in the mainstream media. Or, it could be more complicated than just black and white.

The evidence so far suggests that, despite the murkiness of elements and complicated roster of suspicious players, the truth in Courtland, Mississppi might come with the simplest and most obvious explanation.

I’m hopeful that Obama will interrupt his Hawaiian vacation to tell the cops they’ve acted stupidly, but I trust he’ll just keep golfing.

The first assassination of an NYPD officer since the 1988 ambush of Edward Byrne has rattled the rank-and-file –and prompted cops to adopt drastic “wartime” policing tactics not seen since the 1970s.”At least two units are to respond to EVERY call, no matter the condition or severity, no matter what type of job is pending, or what the opinion of the patrol supervisor happens to be,” an e-mail widely circulated among cops advised Saturday night.

Still, it would be good to know how far the American people are willing to let Obama go. We know that establishment time-servers like John (you-can-do-any-thing-you-like-Obama-and-I’ll-only-pretend-to-object) Boehner are too deeply implicated in the status quo to offer any serious push back. What about the rest of our elected officials? The longer they’ve been in Congress, the more securely are their lips sewn to the teat of public largess and bureaucratic privilege. It was just this eventuality that folks like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton sought to prevent, but we’ve had more than two hundred years of lawyerly hermeneutical ingenuity chip, chip, chipping away at Constitutional safeguards to rely on those fusty old ideas of checks and balances and those “auxiliary precautions” that Madison spoke of in Federalist 51. (“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men,” Madison wrote, “the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” How are we doing on that score?)

It’s not every day that you get to have a ringside seat at the birth of despotism. The entertainment value is likely to be quite high, though I predict the story will not have a happy ending.

An Isis spokesman has posted a call to arms for Muslims around the world to kill American, Canadian and European citizens for their governments’ role in a coalition against ISIS. But what the average American is unaware of are the ISIS more shocking Islamic injunctions that permit Muslims everywhere to carry out killings by ordering them to cause as much as ten million American casualties which we included training videos that circulates the social media for use by the Muslim community under the nose of the FBI which they refuse to do anything about.

And while the average American got used to learning what Jihad meant, there is more shocking Islamic jurisprudence needed in order to understand what is at hand which circulates the social media to prepare Muslims to do indiscriminate killing of Americans. For the first time, perhaps Americans can see such rules of engagement regarding Jihad Al-Radi’ (Repulse Jihad) and Jihad Tabyeet (Jihad by perfecting the killing methods). Here, enter the world of American slumber, whether by naïveté or by design, you decide.

Christians are being “butchered” in Iraq and Syria by the Islamic State and we knew this was coming starting last year, but President Barack Obama called ISIS “junior league or something JV,” said Rev. Franklin Graham, adding that the president “absolutely” must be more vocal and speak out in defense of Christians being persecuted in the Middle East.In an interview on The Kelly File, host Megyn Kelly noted to Rev. Graham that “we’re now engaged in a war over there” against ISIS and “the president is taking some action.”

Reverend Graham, who heads the international relief group Samaritan’s Purse, said, “He is. But the Christians are being slaughtered. Listen, this storm was coming last year as ISIS was building. And everyone knew it.”

Sheikh Haron, the Sydney hostage taker, had an extensive website which is currently down where he posted open letters to assorted politicians. These included a letter to Obama written during his original campaign.

I got your message. Hiding the religion for political purposes is not permitted. When a Muslim is asked about her/his religion, she/he must tell the truth. You think it is permissible by Shariah law to hide your religion to achieve some positions to be able to help Islam and to give a better service to Muslims. You are wrong, Shariah law doesn’t allow you to do so, your reason for hiding your religion Islamically is not a legitimate reason. You must rely on Allah (SWT) and avoid the satanic style of politics. If Allah wants you to be the President of the United States of America, you will definitely be the president, no matter you hide your religion or not, no matter you lie to American people or you tell the truth, so it is not worth to commit a big sin just for political purposes. You will be apostate by denying your religion, I advise you to avoid such a big sin. You must have trust in Allah, you must always remember that Allah has the absolute power to help you to become the President even if you tell the truth that you are a Muslim. Our rely must be only on Allah. You will be the President but it doesn’t worth to be a President by selling out your religion, it is not worth to lose hereafter which is permanent life for this short term life. You will be the President but this is a test from Allah to show to people that Senator Barack Obama chooses the right path or the satanic tactic. I advise you to be careful to pass this test of Allah successfully. May Allah guide all of us. Ameen.

According to the opinion by Judge Arthur Schwab, the president’s policy goes “beyond prosecutorial discretion” in that it provides a relatively rigid framework for considering applications for deferred action, thus obviating any meaningful case-by-case determination as prosecutorial discretion requires, and provides substantive rights to applicable individuals. As a consequence, Schwab concluded, the action exceeds the scope of executive authority.

This is the first judicial opinion to address Obama’s decision to expand deferred action for some individuals unlawfully present in the United States. [I’ve now posted the opinion here.]

The procedural background of the case is somewhat unusual. The case involves an individual who was deported and then reentered the country unlawfully. In considering how to sentence the defendant, the court sought supplemental briefing on the applicability of the new policies to the defendant, and whether these policies would provide the defendant with additional avenues for seeking the deferral of his deportation. In this case, however, it’s not entirely clear it was necessary to reach the constitutional question to resolve the issues before the court with regard to the defendant’s sentence.

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UPDATE: Here are some additional thoughts on the ruling.

It is quite unusual for a district court to reach this sort of constitutional issue in this sort of case. Indeed, Judge Schwab appears to have reached out quite aggressively to engage the lawfulness of the President’s actions. Based upon the procedural history recounted in the opinion, it appears the court requested briefing on the applicability of the new immigration policies on its own order. That is, the issue was not initially raised by the defendant in his own defense. As a result of the court’s decision, however, the defendant now has the option of withdrawing his guilty plea and potentially seeking deferral of his deportation under the new policy.

It seems CMS is taking a page from Jonathan Gruber’s book; rather than allowing the “stupid” masses to make a decision on their own health plan, CMS has proposed a new rule that includes an overly reaching provision allowing CMS to re-enroll anyone who has not made the annual trek back to healthcare.gov in a cheaper plan of CMS’ choosing.// <![CDATA[

That’s right, the government will choose your plan, perhaps limit access to your doctor, and ultimately make the decision on what is “best” for you.

Not to worry, just like Lady Justice, who wears a blindfold when determining guilt or innocence, CMS will use a blindfold to pick your plan. The agency will select your plan without knowing your medical history. They will do so without knowing if you are currently undergoing treatment or working with a specific doctor. They will do so without knowing your financial status. Despite the fact that the millions of people who already enrolled chose the plan that they believed was best for them.

CMS has laid the perfect trap: Sign up at healthcare.gov one time in your life and we will never let you go. If you don’t continually re-enroll each and every year, CMS will keep you on the plan that it chooses because, after all, CMS knows what’s best and they always make the best decision. Oh, and if you don’t believe that, please go to the 600 million dollar website that will give you all kinds of testimonials handcrafted by MIT professors.

Based on Laura Hillenbrand’s 2010 book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, UNBROKEN tells the true story of Olympic athlete Louis “Louie” Zamperini, an American hero who endured and overcame horrific circumstances leading up to—and during—his two years as a Japanese prisoner of war during World War II.

Produced and directed by Angelina Jolie (LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER, MR. AND MRS. SMITH, MALEFICENT) and starring Jack O’Connell (300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE) as Zamperini, Finn Wittrock (“All My Children,” NOAH) as “Mac” McNamara, Domhnall Gleeson (HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS I & II) as “Phil” Phillips, and Takamasa Ishihara as Matsushiro (“The Bird”) Watanabe, UNBROKEN is a powerful, raw and emotionally riveting film that will leave Faith Driven Consumers at once inspired, humbled and proud to be American.